📍 Jamna — A-Rank Dungeon, Heraki | Unknown Time
Four guards lay at the entrance.
Not wounded. Not unconscious. Dead, and arranged neatly enough that someone had taken their time.
Kariro stepped over the nearest one.
He was tall and lean, built like someone who had never needed to be wide because he could just become whatever shape the situation required. Green suit, sharp nose, eyes that moved fast and settled on nothing for long. On his left breast — the Warisus gang symbol, stitched clean into the fabric.
"Why do we always get the boring ones," he said. "Four guards. An amateur could've done this."
Hosoki didn't answer. He was already at the wall to the left of the entrance, magical lens raised to his eye. He was built heavier than Kariro — broad shoulders, thick arms covered in equipment from wrist to elbow. Rings on every finger. Two necklaces, both enchanted. Bracers, armoured waist-wrap, a belt of small pouches. The Warisus symbol was tattooed directly onto his right palm in black ink, visible every time he opened his hand.
"The dungeon isn't the point," he said, reading the wall markings through his lens. "The dungeon is the door."
The passage inside was dark and full of traps. Hosoki walked through each one like they weren't there. Kariro followed his exact steps without asking why.
"Did you find the passage?" Kariro asked.
"I found it six seconds ago." Hosoki's hand found a wheel mechanism built into the stone. He turned it. "The guild missed this because nobody here reads ancient script. Someone adept in it is exceedingly rare."
The wall opened.
The hall beyond was large enough to lose a building in. Old stone, old torches, old air. And in the centre of it — behind a distortion in the light that made the space around it look slightly wrong — the hourglass.
The Minotaur was standing in front of it.
Hosoki went still. The sweat came immediately, without permission.
Ten feet tall. Dark hide over muscle that had no softness anywhere. Two horns spiralling upward, still growing at the tips — still growing meant young, and young for a Minotaur meant something very different than young for anything else. His hands were the size of shields. He wasn't moving. He didn't need to.
"Encountering your kind here," Hosoki said carefully. "The legendary Minotaur. Fate weaves strange paths."
Kariro smiled. The smile of someone handed terrible odds. "Can I take its head off?"
"His horns." Hosoki's voice dropped. "Look at them. He's not at full maturity and he's already—" He ran his lens over the creature once and the reading came back. He exhaled slowly. "SSS rank."
The Minotaur's chest rose once.
"My name is Kenji Taurus." The voice came from deep in the chest, the kind that settled into the floor. "You know what we are. That is more than most."
[ Kenji Taurus — Species: Minotaur | Rank: SSS ]
His golden eyes moved between them.
"The rules. One of you at a time. You may switch. You may never engage me together — if you break this, the hall comes down on all of us." A pause. "I will be safe within my barrier. You will not. Only a diamond barrier can withstand this hall's collapse. And as you know — we are the only ones who use it."
Kariro stretched his neck. "One at a time works for me. cowboy"
Kenji struck the floor with one fist.
"Diamond Barrier."
[ Diamond Barrier — Invisible Tier: Active ]
[ Classification: Legendary | Strength: Maximum ]
The air above the hourglass distorted — no colour, no shimmer, just a wrongness where it stood. The torchlight bent slightly toward it and then away. No white. No gold. Invisible — the legendary tier, the kind beyond colour entirely.
From the darkness above, something fell into Kenji's open hands.
[ Weapon Identified — Crimson Edge | Rank: SS ]
[ Rune Count: 4 | Enhancement: Amplification ]
The blade was as long as a man was tall. Red along its edge, runes carved into the flat glowing faintly. Kenji held it in one hand.
"Let's begin," he said.
Hosoki activated his rings.
[ Weight Doubler — Active | Punch weight ×2 | Duration: 30 min ]
[ Ring of Strength — Active | STR +30% | Duration: 30 min ]
[ Armor Ring — Active | DMG Absorption 30% | Duration: 30 min ]
Three pulses of light at his fingers, the enchantments running up his arms. He felt the weight settle. Thirty minutes. He intended to end this well before that.
Kariro rolled his shoulders.
[ Body Modification — Iron Skin: Active ]
[ Body Modification — Blade Arm: Active ]
His arms darkened from the outside in — flesh to iron-black, smooth and cold, the surface hardening until it caught the torchlight like forged metal. His right hand reshaped slowly, fingers fusing, edge forming. Not a weapon he was holding. A weapon he had become.
Kariro went first.
Kenji swung the axe vertically to meet him.
One arm, one arc — but the air pressure from the swing alone hit like a wall. Wind, dust, fog — the hall went grey. Kariro and Hosoki lost sight of each other.
In the grey, a red eye opened.
Just the eye. Gleaming, still, watching from somewhere in the dust. Then gone.
Kariro spun—
Red light above.
Kenji came down from the air with the axe first, aimed between them. They split. The axe hit stone and the floor didn't crack — it shattered. A ring of broken rock spreading ten metres outward, the force rolling under their feet.
Kenji was already swinging again before the dust cleared.
Kariro couldn't get close. Every angle he found, the axe was already there — not blocking, just occupying the space, heavy and fast. Hosoki tried twice from the left and took pressure waves across his ribs both times. Blood in his mouth on the second.
"He's too strong," Kariro said. "We can't trade with him like this."
"I know." Hosoki wiped his lip. "It's time. Go invisible. I hold his attention."
"How long do you need?"
"Sixty seconds."
Kariro nodded."The cowboy will see I am coming."
[ Body Modification — Invisibility: Active | Duration: 60 sec ]
He disappeared.
Hosoki moved forward.
Every step was a decision made against his own instincts. Kenji watched him come, unhurried, and when Hosoki got within range, the axe came down.
Hosoki dodged left — close enough to feel the blade's air on his face — and hit Kenji in the ribs with a ring-enhanced fist.
Like hitting a wall.
Kenji looked down at him. Then the axe came sideways, and Hosoki threw himself back, and it passed three inches from his chest.
He needed to hold longer.
"Don't end up as mincemeat," Kariro's voice came from somewhere invisible.
"Focus," Hosoki said through his teeth.
Then he activated everything.
Every ring, every necklace, every bracer — all of it at once.
[ Full Item Activation — All Accessories: Active ]
[ Total Enhancement: SSS Rank Level 3 | Duration: 60 sec ]
[ Warning: Physical toll — severe ]
The light erupted from him. Golden, then white, then something brighter than both. His shirt burned away in the surge. The tattoos on his body showed stark through the glow — full coverage, chest to shoulders — and the largest one, the snow tiger coiled across his chest, woke up blue. The blue swallowed everything else. The floor cracked under his feet just from him standing on it.
Hosoki hit Kenji with a fist that had the weight of all thirty items behind it.
Kenji staggered back one step.
One step — but it was the first step that anything had made him take.
"Fine." Kenji tightened his grip on the axe.
[ Crimson Edge — Rune Activation ]
The blade went red-hot, runes blazing, heat visible in the air around it. He swung, and Hosoki met it — ring-armoured forearm against the rune blade — and the sound it made rang in the bones. Both of them bled from the contact. Neither stopped.
Then Kariro found the angle.
Invisible, blade arm forward, coming from the right at the exact point the diamond barrier's edge didn't fully cover—
He drove the blade deep into his heart.
"Die, you son of a cow"
Kenji's breath stopped.
The blade was in his side, and Kariro pulled it back and stepped away and blood came with it — dark and fast, running down Kenji's hide and hitting the floor in heavy drops.
Kenji did not fall.
He stood there. He breathed. The axe was still in his hand.
He swung.
Slower now. His vision moving at the edges. The axe head dropped and caught the floor and he didn't have the strength to lift it immediately.
He let it go.
He came forward with his fists instead.
Kenji hit Hosoki and Hosoki hit the wall and came back.
Hosoki hit the wound and Kenji made a sound and hit Hosoki's hands hard enough that two fingers bent wrong.
Hosoki hit the wound again anyway.
Blood from both of them on the broken floor. The hall was starting to groan above them — stone shifting, pressure building from the damage done to the foundations.
[ Armor Ring — Absorption Limit Reached ]
[ Warning: No further damage reduction ]
Kenji's movements were slowing. His will was still there — visible in his eyes, still sharp — but his body was losing the argument with the blood it was losing. Each punch came slower. Each step heavier.
Hosoki saw the gap.
He ducked under a swing that would have ended him, came up inside Kenji's reach, and drove everything remaining in his rings into the wound.
[ Ring of Strength — Final Output ]
Kenji's body folded around the hit.
He went back ten feet. The rubble stopped him. He did not get up.
[ SSS Rank Duration: Expired ]
The glow left Hosoki all at once. His legs went unreliable. His hands were broken at the fingers, the rings cracked and dark, the necklaces cold. He went down on one knee.
Kariro was already moving.
He sprinted for the hourglass — still there, barrier gone with Kenji's consciousness — grabbed it and turned back.
Hosoki was on the ground. Body burned from the activation toll, hands useless, unable to move.
Kariro pulled the teleportation paper from his coat. Pre-drawn magic circle, waiting for blood. He pressed it to the floor and split his own palm on the edge of his blade arm.
[ Teleportation Circle — Activated ]
The glyphs lit white. The circle opened beneath them.
They were gone before the first stone fell.
Kenji lay in what remained of the hall.
Stone coming down slowly, piece by piece. His axe somewhere in the debris. The hourglass gone. The barrier gone.
He looked up at the ceiling.
I'm sorry, Dad. No anger in it. Just the weight of it being true. I couldn't keep the promise. I'll see you on the other side.
A voice came from nearby. Calm. Close.
"Kenji. You're not dying today. Not on my watch."
A figure at the edge of his failing vision. Heavy presence — not threatening. Just there, the way something certain feels when it arrives.
Kenji's eyes closed.
The voice was the last thing he heard.
✦ CODEX — Chapter Twenty ✦
World Archive: Entries Relevant to Chapter Twenty
ENTRY 077 — THE MINOTAUR RACE
Extinct. No confirmed living member before Kenji Taurus. Lifespan: up to two hundred years. Full maturity at seventy-five — at which point a unique ability awakens, different for each individual.
Limited magical range compared to other races. No elemental affinity. Their power is barrier magic exclusively, but at the highest tier it surpasses any barrier any other race has produced.
Kenji's horns indicate he has not yet reached maturity. He is already SSS rank.
ENTRY 078 — THE DIAMOND BARRIER
Barrier strength scales with colour. White is weakest. Gold is mid-tier. The legendary tier produces no colour — invisible, because it has gone beyond colour. Only Minotaurs have ever produced the invisible tier.
Kenji's barrier could not be broken through direct force. Kariro found the gap in its coverage.
ENTRY 079 — KARIRO (WARISUS, INNER CIRCLE)
Body-modifier type. Rank: SS level 4. Can reshape any part of his body — iron skin, blade arms, full invisibility. Each modification has a time limit. Wears the Warisus symbol on his left breast. Green suit.
ENTRY 080 — HOSOKI (WARISUS, INNER CIRCLE)
Weapon-user type. Rank: SS Level 5. Can equip and actively use up to twenty items simultaneously — standard limit for E-rank adventurers is two. Covered in rings, necklaces, and enchanted items at all times. Warisus symbol tattooed on his right palm.
Full activation — all items at once — raises him to SSS rank level 3 for sixty seconds. Physical toll is severe: burns, broken joints, temporary collapse after duration expires. The snow tiger tattoo on his chest activates blue at full power.
Three rings used in this fight: Weight Doubler, Ring of Strength, Armor Ring. All A rank, thirty-minute limit each.
ENTRY 081 — THE LEGENDARY HOURGLASS
Legendary artifact. Function unknown. Held in Heraki under Kenji's guardianship. Now in Warisus possession. Why they want it: unknown.
ENTRY 082 — KENJI TAURUS: STATUS
Near death after the fight. Found by an unknown figure before the hall finished collapsing. Last of his species. His father made him promise to protect the hourglass. He failed to keep it. He survived anyway — not by his own hand.
End of Chapter Twenty Codex.